Determination of effect of visual media on alcohol and tobacco use

Alcohol and drug of abuse is an important public health problem with many dimensions. People try to use substances with different reasons such as satisfying their social and emotional needs, enjoying themselves, seeking excitement, moving away from their problems or challenging them. The biggest reason and the most impressive element of people that starting to use drugs is stated as "curiosity". Media is one of the factors that influence the curiosity factor. Showing alcohol and substances enjoyable, relaxing side on screen can wake you up and create incentive effects. Alcohol and tobacco are two important addictive material that their production is connected to the rule by the state and easily accessible, international and national distribution intensive, have more user-oriented advertisement and promotions. With this study, it is tried to put scientific data on the effects of the presentations on alcohol and tobacco use in the visual media. For this purpose; 50 volunteers were watched A Long Story movie, which included fewer alcohol and cigarette images and 50 volunteers were watched Losers' Club where alcohol and cigarettes are more popular. During the selection of films; television, cinema and internet environment, the years of construction, types, level of appreciation, duration are taken into account. Semi-structured information form that includes the sociodemographic characteristics such as gender, age, marital status, education status and operability status, smoking and alcohol use history, film appreciation levels, alcohol and cigarette smoking questions, Penn Alcohol Craving Scale (PACS) and Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND) was applied. The data were evaluated statistically. The majority of the participants were women and non-working, university students. 38 % of participants reported that they did not smoke, and 23 % reported that they never consumed alcohol. However, the number of people who use alcohol 1-2 times a month is the majority. Participants watched A Long Story reported 8 times more alcohol display than the actual duration even though they predicted the viii smoking duration to be less than the actual duration. Despite the low number of smokers, participants indicated that smoking and alcohol demands increased while watching the film. According to PACS, while watching movies increasing craving of people who drink alcohol is also supporting this data. Although this film contains less alcohol and smoking cigarettes images, an increase in the levels of followers is an important finding. Participants watched the Losers' Club stated that the alcohol and cigarette use diversion effect was greater. They estimated the smoking duration to be 6 times more and the alcohol exposure duration about 4 times more. According to the PACS, the drinkers people who watched this movie showed an increase of about 2 times compared to A Long Story movie. In this study, it was observed that alcohol and cigarette images published in visual media such as television, cinema and internet encourage the use of these materials. The necessity of making new regulations about using alcohol and cigarette content especially in cinema is one of the results of this study.